Pupil Subcultures

The first area of evidence we can consider is in relation to the concept of reactive subcultures.

David Hargreaves ("Social Relations In A Secondary School", 1967), for example, suggests that deviant sub-cultures develop as a pupil reaction to labelling. In the school he studied, he found a delinquent sub-culture developed as a reaction to - and reinforcement of - a labelling process.

The pupils who developed a deviant / delinquent sub-culture did so on the basis of their labelling as "multiple failures":

• They attended a secondary modern school widely seen to be the type of school that non-academic pupils attended.
• They were streamed in the school and were invariably in the lowest stream.
• They were selected-out from the lowest stream and identified as "louts" and "trouble-makers".

Hargreaves suggests that, as a consequence of negative labelling, pupils sought-out each other's company as a means of "fighting back". Pupils who formed a delinquent sub-culture did so because they accepted their label and tried to transform its negative connotations into positive attributes.

For example, the low status these pupils were given was transformed, within the pupil sub-culture, into high inter-personal status through deliberate attempts to see who could gain the most prestige within the group by breaking the rules. By doing the things that teachers regarded as deviant - playing truant, disrupting lessons, making teachers appear foolish, cheating and so forth - pupils were able, in each other's eyes, to gain some form of status within the sub-cultural group.

Conversely, Hargreaves found that a non-deviant (conformist) pupil sub-culture also developed for the opposite reasons; pupils who were relatively successful within the school also sought-out each other's company as a means of confirming their superior social status within the school.

Paul Willis ("Learning To Labour"), studied a group of 12 boys in their last 18 months at secondary school and their first few months of work. He argued that "the lads" (as they identified themselves) formed a distinctive "counter-school sub-cultural grouping" characterised by its opposition to the values and norms perpetuated throughout the school. This group:

• Felt superior to conformist pupils (labelled disparagingly as "ear oles").
• Showed little interest in academic work, preferring instead to amuse themselves as best they could through various forms of deviant behaviour ("having a laff" became the main objective of the school day).
• Tried to identify with the non-school, adult world as they saw it, by such things as smoking, drinking and emphasising a strongly sexist and racist set of attitudes.

Colin Lacey ("Hightown Grammar", 1970) found a similar process to the one described by Hargreaves in a very different type of school. As grammar school pupils, it might be assumed that the fact they had achieved a relatively high level of academic status by being accepted into a higher status school would not result in a deviant sub-culture developing. However, Lacey found the process whereby the school attempted to differentiate pupils on the basis of achievement (high, middle and low streams, for example) created a sense of failure in the lowest streams, even though at the age of eleven such pupils had been positively labelled as academically bright.

This study illustrates the idea that the process of educational differentiation seems to be an important factor in the development of pupil sub-cultures. The implication to be drawn from these very different types of study is that it is the educational process itself (the way it is organised to reflect particular social values and ideals) that creates pupil subcultures (of both the conformist and deviant variety.

It is also possible to note the existence of a form of deviancy amplification process at work within the school, whereby the various attempts by teachers to demonstrate their control and authority over pupils can, in some instances, simply exacerbate the deviant behaviour they are trying to prevent...

As you might expect, the above evidence is not without its critics.

For example, on a general theoretical level, the usual criticisms of labelling theory apply. That is, there tends to be little empirical evidence available to confirm labelling theories of deviance. In addition, by focusing on small-scale systems of social interaction (the school in this instance), labelling theorists tend to ignore, overlook or play down the significance of cultural / structural factors.

For example, Willis argues that his study shows evidence to suggest that the pupils he studied were not particularly well-socialised into the values and norms of the school and, by extension, society as a whole (the argument that the secondary socialisation process in the school was not very efficient).

However, a different interpretation might be that, since "the lads" he studied were destined for semi and unskilled labour in their working lives, the school had indeed produced pupils who were reasonably well-orientated and accepting of their future adult roles.

Finally, in this respect, Pete Woods ("The Divided School", 1979) argued that while pupil subcultures do develop in schools, the situation is more complex than the above studies have suggested. Woods argues that rather than seeing pupil subcultures as either conformist or deviant, it is more realistic to see a variety of possible adaptations / responses to the schooling process (and hence different levels of educational achievement).

Woods loosely adopted Merton's adaptation categories (developed as part of his Strain theory of deviance). While Merton outlined five basic categories of response to social strains (Conformity, Innovation, Retreatism, Ritualism and Rebellion), Woods identified eight possible responses. These are, in descending order of conformity:

As with Merton’s analysis, this is basically an "ends and means" argument. Various pupil types accept, reject or try to change the officially prescribed ends and means to educational success.

A further point to note about each of the above is their concentration on male experiences and subcultures. Until recently the sociological focus was placed squarely on this particular group, but it is increasingly apparent that females, too, develop both different orientations and responses to school and work.

In a manner that echoes Woods' ideas about the range of differential responses to school and schooling, Sue Lees, for example, has noted that amongst females the same kinds of orientations develop, although they may be expressed in slightly different ways. She notes, for example, how female subcultural groups develop around those who are "pro-school" and those who are "anti-school". Within these two broad bands, further refinements exist.

The "pro-school" groups can, for example, be refined into those who have an intrinsic value of education (they see the educational process as enjoyable and worthwhile) and those who take a more extrinsic or instrumental approach to their studies (they see qualifications, for example, as a necessary means towards a desired end and don't particularly value school "for its own sake").

In addition, some females are "pro-school" in the sense of seeing it as an enjoyable place to be, socialising with friends and so forth, without necessarily seeing qualifications as being particularly important.

In the "anti-school" response we find similar refinements, with some subcultural groups seeing school as a pointless waste of time, an unenjoyable and uncomfortable period in their life they have to get through before being able to escape into the adult world of work and family.

In terms of the concept of reactive subcultural development, the key idea here is that subcultural groups (of both the "pro" and "anti" school kind) develop out of a reaction to what is being done to the pupils involved, whether this means things like status denial or a simple rejection of authority.

A different form of subcultural group may, however, develop within schools, one that, in effect, arises out of the cultural concerns, experiences and values of different social classes, genders and ethnic groups. This type is termed an independent subculture and we can note the work of someone like Walter Miller as an example of this type of subcultural group.

In this form of sub-cultural grouping the members of the group are held to adopt a set of norms and values which are effectively "self-contained" and specific to the group. Where these values, in particular, differ from those of the wider culture within which the sub-culture exists, they may not necessarily (or consciously) be in opposition to such values (unlike in the reactyive subcultural variety where opposition is an intrinsic part of the group's reason for existing). However, what such subcultural values represent is an "independent" product of - and solution to - the problems faced by people in their everyday lives.

A further argument against the use of subcultural explanations for differential educational achievement is provided by Peter Willmott ("Adolescent Boys In East London"). In his study of young, working class, males, he argued that although there was evidence that such people lived "boring, dead-end, lives" and used deviant activities as a way of adding a certain level of excitement to their lives, there was little evidence to suggest that deviance was either carefully planned, or based on subcultural values.

What he argued, however, was that the deviant behaviour of working class males tended to more-visible than that of middle class males and females - and consequently more-likely to come to the attention of the social control agencies such as teachers and the police. Furthermore, because control agents were aware (through their experience of policing such groups) of this involvement in deviance, they watched this group more closely and, of course, discovered evidence to confirm their observations.

Finally, David Downes also studied the behaviour of East End adolescents and found:

No evidence of "status frustration" among young, working class, males. They did not appear, he argued, to show any resentment at their low social status and their behaviour could not, therefore, be explained in terms of a reaction to status denial by middle class schools and teachers.

Downes did, however, argue that there was evidence to suggest that a lack of satisfaction with their schooling / work prospects lead these young males to stress "leisure values". This made them more likely than their middle class counterparts to indulge in "exiting" activities that lead them into conflict with authority. For Downes, the deviance he found was unplanned, relatively petty and not evidence of any long-term commitment to deviate...